As school janitors and campus police became inundated with crime reports and vandalism occurring in the B and M building bathrooms, allegedly done by San Diego High School students, they have decided to lock those bathrooms from 2 p.m. to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday in order to prevent further incidences from occurring. The B and M building bathrooms will remain locked until campus police or Plant Operations can come up with a better solution, campus police Sgt. Jordan Mirakian said.
“We haven’t had any other reports,” Mirakian said. “No problems. No changes. We haven’t even had any other complaints out of the other bathrooms (on campus).”
San Diego High School students are suspects in the bathroom incidents because of the specific types of tagging that occurred in the bathrooms, prior arrests and the specific times that the bathrooms were being vandalized, according to campus police. Another reason is because of the many legitimate San Diego High students that attend the Early Middle College program located on City College campus.
According to Aly Cerda, coordinator of the Early Middle College program at San Diego High, students that participate in the Early Middle College are unlikely to have the opportunity to commit any acts of vandalism.
“I personally don’t think that it pertains to the students involved in the Early Middle College program,” Cerda said. “We have a class of students that walk over there with their teachers from the high school, and the teachers will actually pick them up from the (City College) campus.”
Cerda also added that it would be hard to say that San Diego High students are to blame for the incidents because there are students from multiple high schools that attend classes on the City College campus.
One of the only solutions that would prevent San Diego High students from committing these acts is to have San Diego High administration speak to the students and make them aware of the issues pertaining to the City College bathroom, Cerda said.
“We would let them know that if they are caught doing these types of things on campus, there will be consequences harsher than those for students caught vandalizing the high school campus,” Cerda said.
But even this solution would be ineffective because of the little power high school faculty has outside of the classroom, according to San Diego High students Paola Delgado and Elysa McClelland.
“As soon as the bell rings, you do whatever you want,” Delgado said.
“That’s how most (high school) students feel,” McClelland added. “Once school is over, you’re not in my life. So (students) do whatever they want.”
With little else to be done by San Diego High administration, as well as City College campus police, the only alternative to prevent vandalism in the bathrooms of buildings B and M is to have the bathrooms locked, Mirakian said.
